


The Saga of Bucky's Duck

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Rubber Ducks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2348912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a rubber duck," Steve says. "To keep you company when you're taking a bath."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Saga of Bucky's Duck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoiledcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoiledcat/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Saga of Bucky's Duck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653449) by [ansiblle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansiblle/pseuds/ansiblle)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Сага о Резиновой Уточке Баки Барнса | The Saga of Bucky's Duck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11586174) by Anonymous 



> [spoiledcat77](http://spoiledcat77.tumblr.com) suffered a typo while suggesting I write about Bucky's dick, and I felt compelled to actually write a story about Bucky's duck. It turned out a bit... grim for a story about a rubber duck (though not particularly grim at all for a story about Bucky).

Bucky washes himself in the shower when washing is called for. It's efficient. Bucky runs the water lukewarm and finishes scrubbing himself clean within three to five minutes. 

The bathroom in Steve's apartment, unlike his room at the holding facility, has a bathtub. He's taken nearly a month of showers there before it occurs to him that baths are also an option--not just in terms of the plumbing, but something he might be allowed to do. After that it takes him another week to maneuver himself into opening the topic; he can't quite ask if he has permission, but mentioning something in the right way is usually enough to get Steve to tell him if there are rules.

There are, Steve informs him, no rules about baths. Hot water is plentiful, and Bucky is welcome to monopolize the bathtub whenever he pleases.

Bucky finds that he likes baths. He's never quite warm enough anywhere else, but when he's immersed in the not-quite-scalding heat of the bathtub the last of the ice seems to melt out of him, if only for the moment. He keeps sinking lower--the tops of his ears are cold, the end of his nose--until he's all the way under the water. 

He was programmed--taught, he's supposed to say _taught_ now--to be able to control his own heart rate. It was convenient for the technicians when he could slow himself down to a beat per minute or less before they put him into cryo storage. He thinks in retrospect it was mostly useful for rendering him unconscious, but he was as happy as the techs were to be gone before the freeze hit.

The hot bath is the opposite of that, but he starts slowing his heart anyway. It makes a breath last longer, and the longer he can hold a breath, the longer he can stay under without having to emerge into the cold air. It's so warm under the water, close and quiet. He feels his limbs relax, slumping against the sides of the tub; even his metal arm goes into low-power neutral posture as his body sinks into slow motion. His thoughts slow until coherent thought, or memory, is impossible. There's only the warmth of the water around him, and the slowing drumbeat of his heart, and the lengthening silences in between.

The pressure in his chest makes him tilt his chin up, breathe out and then in, but there are long warm stretches of stillness in between. His eyes close. He is warm enough. He is floating, cradled in this little space just big enough for his body. He is warm enough. Everything is still. It's getting dark.

And then it's very bright and loud and cold, dizzying motion and hands on his bare skin and a loud voice demanding his attention. His heart rate rockets up and his arm whirs into readiness. It's going to be mission prep next, the questions and the lights and the chair--

Steve lets go of him and stumbles back a second before Bucky swings, and Bucky freezes, bathwater sloshing around his shins. Steve is nearly in the doorway, soaking wet and wide-eyed.

"You weren't breathing," Steve says. "You were at the bottom of the tub and you weren't breathing. I couldn't find your pulse."

Bucky's pulse is hammering now, and the readiness to fight--readiness for a mission--is pounding through his body. The lights are hurting his eyes, and he's cold, and disorientation makes him reckless enough to say, almost without hesitating, "It's warm down there. I slow down my heart and I don't have to breathe that often. I was just taking a bath."

Steve's eyes close, and he inches back another step and says, "I'm sorry. You're--obviously--I'm sorry. You're fine. I'll let you," and Steve waves his hand at Bucky and turns away, so Bucky isn't sure what Steve is letting him do.

He doesn't bother getting back into the bath; he knows he won't be able to settle himself to it again.

* * *

The next day Steve gives him a present, which is to say that he sets down an unfamiliar object three feet away from Bucky and then walks away without saying anything. Bucky frowns at the little yellow toy for nearly a minute before he reaches out with his left hand to pick it up. 

It's a stylized yellow duck made of some flexible plastic, hollow inside, with a little opening on the flat bottom for air to pass through so it can be squeezed. It has wide painted-on eyes, and the bill is orange.

He looks around for Steve, and Steve comes back and sits down on the couch. "It's a rubber duck," Steve says. "To keep you company when you're taking a bath."

Bucky frowns and examines it again more carefully--there's no point in hiding that from Steve. Steve will assume as much. Bucky does not find a camera, or any other sensor, let alone any output device. There is only the smooth molded plastic surface. He could cut it open to check more thoroughly, but that would ruin the gift.

"Metaphorical company," Steve says, and Bucky looks up again. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it in the bath with you, that's all. Like a warning buoy. Just a reminder to come up for air sometimes."

Bucky nods, and Steve accepts this answer and walks away again. Bucky takes the duck to the bathroom, placing it carefully on a ledge where he won't forget it. The next time he takes a bath he obediently drops it into the water. Steve had not made it a rule, but Bucky is willing to do almost anything when Steve comes that close to asking it of him. Steve did not ask him not to take baths anymore, or even not to go under the water and hold his breath. He gave Bucky a rubber duck.

This, Bucky knows, is called _compromise_. Bucky makes his heart slow and focuses his dimming vision on the duck, and does not close his eyes. When even the bright yellow starts to fade, he lifts his face to the surface and takes a breath. 

Even when his thoughts get slow enough that he cannot think about Steve, or rules, or compromises, he knows what the flash of yellow above him means.

* * *

On a bad day, when he cannot be still and cannot slow his heart, when he knows that even the warmth of a bath will not melt the ice in him, he goes into the bathroom and gets the duck. He holds it caged in his left hand, which has more reliable feedback mechanisms to keep him from ripping it apart with anxious squeezing.

He looks down at it from time to time while he paces restlessly around the apartment. He remembers each time he sees it that Steve wants him to come up for air. He raises his chin and breathes out and then in.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is [also available on tumblr](http://dsudis.tumblr.com/post/98224870089/spoiledcat77-tried-to-say-they-were-telling-me-to), and so am I!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Saga of Bucky's Duck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2376671) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
